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Monstrous Regiment. It has it's redeeming qualities. It looked like a very good book, during the first third of it. It had good particulars, the little things that Pratchett is very good at.

The main thing which turned me off Monstrous Regiment was the cheesy joke which ran along with the main plot, and I feel that it tarnished much of my appreciation of the book. After another member of the group was revealed to be a woman, I could already see that the entire group would be, in fact, women.

My hopes with Maladict were unfortunately shattered. I don't know what was worse, really, Maladict, or a third of the high command.

In any case, the plot began to deteriorate after the first third of the book. The little things were still there, but less so. The big picture was a mess. It was like being on a train, seeing it rushing to a point where the rails are broken, and hoping all along that they will magically mend themselves before you reach them.

Pterry took it way to far. While I understand that in such situttions women did take up arms, having almost every character be a woman as too much. It became less interesting each time it was revealed. It became the standard rather than a twist. I think it would of been better if Jackrum (who we suspected of beening a woman) was a man.

Yes, that's exactly how I felt. Jackrum being a woman was, I feel, the last nail in the coffin. Also, that lawyer fellow whose name I can't rember, the one who protected the regiment in the military trial. Making him a her almost made me froth.

Too much. That one joke did wonders in ruining a book that could have been better.

After that bit was spoiled to me before reading it, I had expected MR to be a lot sillier, though. All in all, it was, despite the sillyness of a joke stretched the farest possible way, one of his darker novels. The single characters, all taken one by one, all worked for me - all had convincing reasons, except for Maladicta maybe...
(Sorry all for repeating myself a little here by the way. )

In the frame set as it was, I somehow had no problems with Jackrum turning out to be a woman, or a third of the military elite, at that. Interestingly (for myself), the mental image of Jackrum didn't change the least.
And as said, it was, in a way, only consequent. Consequently over the top, but well - there are so many, serious as well as silly, attempts to the Gender-switch-story, maybe Pterry pushed it until it became absurd because he didn't want this DW novel to be another one.
Stretching an idea popular in literature until its extreme is -or at least used to be- part of Discworld (as well as is then giving it yet [i:ba587cb3d2]another [/i:ba587cb3d2]twist and take it serious again, once you've long crossed and left behind the sillyness-line...).

Can anyone still follow me...?

I also found it had a nice touch that of all, Jade and Igorina were the "girliest girls". ("...mentally ordering a big pretzel when looking at her...") And the whole concept of the way you live and the cultural practice you exercise changing your identity and not necessarily the other way round...

I too hoped that Maladict (and to some extent, Jackrum) would be allowed to stay male. I was also somewhat let down by Alice(- the girl who was possessed by Duchess' spirit) slipping into a coma at the end of the novel - a tidy, yet cheap way of dealing with a character, in my opinion.

I can't defend the book (it made me depressed for days) but I can defend Pterry . I got the feeling that he was REALLY angry and upset with the world when he wrote MR. Maybe because of the Iraq/Afghanistan war, maybe for some other reason. If it's the former, then maybe at the time all he could picture in his mind was the dark and horrible aspects of war ("I had to kill that boy to get you his water canteen - I had to watch his eyes while he died!"), while failing to come up with any solution. Then, a whiles later, the solution (sort of) occured to him, and thus we have Thud.

I read the whole book after a while thinking, 'Yeah yeah, I get it, they're all women, so what?' Which, for me, spoiled what could have been a good story. One of my favourite bits though, where I forgot about the short-comings for a minute, was when they rigged up the explosive device with the flower.

On the matter of all of them turning out female, first read THIS LINk - or at least enough to understand the reference.

Pterry has taken the basic quote, twisted the context, and then cut a significant part of the quote - maybe this time he was being too clever and assuming more knowledge than some readers have - I know the context of the quote because I had a couple of small parts in the play "Vivat Vivat Regina" which covers the history of that period, including that quote - I understood the reference immediately, saw what he was doing by truncating it, and therefore knew from the start that every real member of the unit was going to be female - the political officer masquerading as a corporal didn't count, and Blouse as the lately appointed officer didn't count.

Given that the joke as I saw it was that Blouse having been posted to the unit was so convinced that he could fool anyone when he was impersonating a woman, but was actually the only unsuccessful cross-dresser in the entire book, having Maladicta and/or Jackrum turn out to be male would have killed the entire joke for me.

I liked it, so I'll make an attempt at defending it. But first, to get this out of the way, we all have our opinions, and there's no reason everyone has to like each book.

Of course they were all girls. I'm not quite as bright as the rest of you, because I didn't actually guess that Jackrum was a girl. I was pleasantly surprised by that twist, and thought it worked well with the character. As for the rest of the squad, once we found out that more than one was a girl, it only made sense that the rest would be. It's a comedy. Not real life. It's a joke, which wouldn't have worked if only some of them were girls.

Maladict(a) would have made a better male vampire. Definitely. But in the context of the book, she had to be a she, to fit in with the rest of the gang.

I didn't see this book as "dark" (if I knew how, I would officially quote Mowgli), despite the war references. Thud, for me, was a lot darker, possibly because I could feel the humor in MR and knew it would turn out all right. It's definitely an anti-war book, and very timely. I loved the concept that the people of Borogravia didn't even know why they were at war any more (right up there with the equally common delusion that they were winning the war).

But besides war, it's also about self-awareness, and not letting other people define you. Most people are willing to accept the roles that they're set, but here's a group of girls that weren't going to settle for the status quo. And I may be reading a theme into it that wasn't intended by the author, but the feminist side of me rather enjoyed the girls taking on the establishment. Granted, with a little help from Vimes and company.

I'm not saying I want to go out disguised as a man (perish the thought), but I've been in situations where I know I'd get more respect if I had short hair and a pair of socks. So with that in mind, Monstrous Regiment is a small step towards changing the world. Polly doesn't want to accept being a girl, so she goes out disguised as a boy, but in the end, she's going to make her own way, on her own terms, armed with a cutlass and a skirt.

We all like different things, so I may not change anyone's opinion, but I'm going to take a stand and disagree with the majority. (And you're not going to change my opinion either.)

Erm... this might sound anal, but Polly didn't dress up as a man because she "wouldnt' accept being a girl". From what I understand, she had no problems with being a girl (well, eventually she discovered a few advantages to having short hair and socks, but that came later). The reason for her transformation was to find her brother - and to do that, she had to join the army i.e. become a man - she wasn't doing it out of protest or rebellion.

Free will as in allowing the book to be written as it was. In any case, my prayers were quite futile, as the book was already written, and you could say that I was praying, in fact, for reality to change for my benifit.

Never works, that.

As for the flour-based explosive, I liked that bit. It was the only truly good bit in that particular part of the book, in my opinion.

Mowgli said:

I was also somewhat let down by Alice(- the girl who was possessed by Duchess' spirit) slipping into a coma at the end of the novel - a tidy, yet cheap way of dealing with a character, in my opinion.

Indeed. I feel that this is where Terry just didn't have anything to do with the character, and took the easy way out. Sad, definitely not an improvement for the book, and very true.

mowgli said:

I can't defend the book (it made me depressed for days) but I can defend Pterry . I got the feeling that he was REALLY angry and upset with the world when he wrote MR. Maybe because of the Iraq/Afghanistan war, maybe for some other reason. If it's the former, then maybe at the time all he could picture in his mind was the dark and horrible aspects of war ("I had to kill that boy to get you his water canteen - I had to watch his eyes while he died!"), while failing to come up with any solution. Then, a whiles later, the solution (sort of) occured to him, and thus we have Thud.

Oh, I can live with the dark way the book is written in. Night Watch was dark, and it was an exceptional piece of literature, worthy of several awards.

MR was just... meh. It wasn't interesting, had several glaring mistakes which simply shouldn't have been done, and that was that really.

Pixel said:

Given that the joke as I saw it was that Blouse having been posted to the unit was so convinced that he could fool anyone when he was impersonating a woman, but was actually the only unsuccessful cross-dresser in the entire book, having Maladicta and/or Jackrum turn out to be male would have killed the entire joke for me.

Sadly, most of the readers just didn't get it, if that was indeed as it was intended. Terry's more... 'hidden' jokes, were always done in a way that wouldn't be a hinderance to the book as a whole. This time, that just wasn't the case.

Mowgli said:

From what I understand, she had no problems with being a girl (well, eventually she discovered a few advantages to having short hair and socks, but that came later). The reason for her transformation was to find her brother - and to do that, she had to join the army i.e. become a man - she wasn't doing it out of protest or rebellion.

Exactly. Only later did she find that she took quite well to army life, when someone smart in said life was needed.

I was going to jump in and defend what is quite possibly my favorite Pratchett book, but SunshineDaydream said it much better... As for her refusal to "accept being a girl," say rather that she "doesn't want to accept a girl's place in Borogravia." It's because women can't hold property that she goes looking for her brother; she doesn't want The Duchess to fall out of her family's hands if she can help it.

Aside from the glaring mistakes as Roman has put it...
The whole book was in my mind a satirical outlook on the female-male battle of the sexes thing.
I don't know if Terry had intended this but this is how i saw it.

(Excuse me... I am a feminist - this is my opinion and if it offends somebody i'm sorry)

Women in war are always the people who suffer the most. Through the ages who always bore the brunt of all the consequenses of war- the raping and pillaging, slaving, the cost of getting your life together when there is no more men left.

But women in that sense are a lot stronger than men because even in the face of absolute desolation we can always go on.

In a more general sense it just about women most of the time can do the same things as men and maybe sometimes do them better.
I liked MR in that sense - but it was dark bout in a silly way.
I must say i agree with roman - i liked NightWatch much better.

Actually, I completely disagree with that…it’s an invalid, and frankly, sexist. There probably is no sex that always ‘suffer’ more. But if we want to ‘score’ it what do you think men get up to during wars? I think it would be wrong to say that the women of World War II suffered more than the solders in the trench. And, while it’s slightly stupid to try to collate suffering I’m sure in the history of war more men have died horrible slow painfull deaths than women have been raped (now I know, that many women would choose a bullet in the gut rather than be raped but I think it’s fair to say that both options involve a lot of suffering).

the cost of getting your life together when there is no more men left

The cost of getting your life together is more suffering than actually dying, now, I can see how losing the people around you can be unbarable (your father, your brother, your son), but don’t you think that men suffer these loses too?

women in that sense are a lot stronger than men because even in the face of absolute desolation we can always go on

Which implies that men cannot do this? Well, I disagree this that. Men have just as much resolve as women.

Now, you could, argue that men cause wars therefore women’s suffering is worse because they didn’t bring it on themselves. But really Wars are started by the powerful. Women in power are just as capable of starting wars as men, it’s not the sex, it’s the position.

I really don’t think that you’ve looked fairly at both sides before you made up your mind on who suffers more.

That way, one is left to ask themselves: Why, of all, is a feminist tapping into the old trap giving, in a generalizing way, all women the victim's role?

In the case of feminist history, basically to portray them as the better half of humanity. They're not, per se.

Most societies in the recent centuries restricted them to a rather passive role, at least officially, when it came to war. When you look at the photos of history books where massacres are being executed, you almost always see men with rifles, and women, men and children in front of them. I suppose those images shape a lot of mental images of how war works.
But it's not that women are less capable of committing atrocities, once they have been integrated into the institutions supporting them.

A woman committing them is often taboo though, as if it were against nature - another aspect of "women don't do war", I suppose. Lindy England? The women who worked, and tortured, in Nazi era concentration camps?

Women have always participated in war, though often not exactly in the spotlight, as the thing propaganda wanted the people to see was mainly male heroism (which has, most often, partly been portrayed as protecting women from the enemy).
They followed their men during the Roman era, and during the crusades, and all the following wars, they took part as medical and technical staff during the world wars - all of which included joining the fight once you were in the melee.
A lot of people are in an ideologic dilemma because since recently, women are allowed as soldiers, not only medical staff, into the German army as well. If you're from a political camp that is for pacifism as well as sexual equality, its probably hard to decide wether that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Of course, in most wars, there were always civilists of both genders being killed, and fighting the fight only in the trenches was more of an exception. (Every bigger city at least in Europe, Asia, and surely a lot of cities in africa can tell that story.) Plus, it always was a tactic of war to rape as many of "the enemy's women" as possible.
Though Rinso is right in saying the powerful decide starting the war, its often human nature that takes over the rest - you don't have to [i:9669f3b964]order [/i:9669f3b964]your army to rape every girl (and boy) they can get hold of, in some cases you just don't forbid it. (Nanking?)

But it's not that women are less capable of committing atrocities, once they have been integrated into the institutions supporting them.

Which is basically what Terry inferred when it was revealed that a third of the high command (including the main general) were women. Women are just as capable of continuing a senseless war as men (would Cynth argue they are better at it? )

I liked Monstrous Regiment, not as good as The Truth or Night Watch but still a very good book and not the worst for me. The everyone was female was a little grating, but not enough to really detract from the story as a whole.

But it's not that women are less capable of committing atrocities, once they have been integrated into the institutions supporting them.

Which is basically what Terry inferred when it was revealed that a third of the high command (including the main general) were women. Women are just as capable of continuing a senseless war as men (would Cynth argue they are better at it? )

I agree.

I agree with Rincewind as well, and therefore with Roman and Hsing.

I also thought the joke of everyone being female was stupid, although I didn't particularly think any particular female, Maledicta or Jackrum or whoever, should have been male.

And thus, Electric Man elegantly steers the digressing discussion back to PTerry's works.

Gah! And it would've been subtle, it it weren't for those meddling Germans...

Is it me, or was there a hint of Russian WW2 tactics in Brogravia? i.e. chucking as many (wo)men as you can at the opposition, even if you haven't got enough weapons to go around (as proved by the quartermaster)

Maybe, yes... although that was a widespread phenomenon in wars that either stretched very long or were led with all available resources, no matter what the cost. (WWII f.e., but not only the Russians, but also the Germans who started force-recruiting everything from old -really old- men to 14 year old boys and girls).

Is it me, or was there a hint of Russian WW2 tactics in Brogravia? i.e. chucking as many (wo)men as you can at the opposition, even if you haven't got enough weapons to go around (as proved by the quartermaster)

Oh, that's the old-fashioned Russian way of waging war. Who needs weapons and training when you have a great big sea of people you can send forward?

In truth, weapons and training were available, just on a far lesser scale than in other armies. Russian warfare maxim at that time was 'make it simple'. Which is why Russian tanks, while being less accuarate and manueverable than the German ones, were far simpler both in terms of use and repair, so what took days to repair for the Germans could be repaired in a matter of hours for the Russians.

Not wanting to make a big deal of this, but adding this 'Is just my opinion' doesn't change the nature of the statements. It's not a case of all opinions being equally valid. Your point of you seems heavily bias towards your own sex. So much so that it leads you to make claims like 'Women in war are always the people who suffer the most.' Or ' women in that sense are a lot stronger than men because even in the face of absolute desolation we can always go on.' Such Claims have no proof to them and have obvious flaws. Do women *always* suffer the most? In every war in the history of time? What about childredn? Etc. While it's fine to be a feminist, it's better to realist. In realitity, women don't *always* suffer more than men, or there is no way to calculate the suffering so such claims are pointless. In fact, I don't really see the point in spilting amount of suffering between the sexes. Wouldn't it be better if we stopped defining ourselves as sexes and started just saying 'people'. Isn't that what feminism is really about?

Ba isn't going to get into the discussion itself. But he will say that when a person puts their opinion out for others to read or hear, then they have to be prepared for people to disagree, and to argue against their positions. Just because it's an opinion doesn't mean that others can't find it wrong. This is a discussion board. That's what discussion is about.

I don't think Cynth has a problem with people disagreeing with her opinions, indeed, it's something that she predicted. What I disagree with is the implication that because it's a personal opinion it doesn't have to be based on fact. But the arguments afterwards are just as valid... This gives me the impression that Cynth believes that all 'points of view' are 'just as valid'. Which I don't understand, how can an posing view be just as valid as yours without negating the entire discussion. For me, the valildly of an argument is demermined by the reasons and evidence in which it is expressed. Not by adding the pre-curser 'this is my opinion.'

Cynth, I don't mean to sound like I'm giving you a hard time or anything. I know I'm jumping on everything. It's mostly because I'm bored at work and like these discussions. I don't mean to be annoying (if I am)

Now the whole "everyone being girls" thing I felt wasn't stupid, just a little to obvious for my liking. It was pretty obvious right from the start which let the book down as a whole.

But Pterry took this 'secret' and did everything to it he could (like the washerwoman thing or visiting the brothel) it just wasn't enough to pull it all together in the end - not every book can be the pinnacle of brilliance

Now the whole "everyone being girls" thing I felt wasn't stupid, just a little to obvious for my liking. It was pretty obvious right from the start which let the book down as a whole.

But Pterry took this 'secret' and did everything to it he could (like the washerwoman thing or visiting the brothel) it just wasn't enough to pull it all together in the end - not every book can be the pinnacle of brilliance

Indeed. The main problem of the book was not that these detestible jokes were there. The problem was that these detestible jokes were used to hold the entire book together.

lt was hilarious! lt kept you in suspense waiting to see who would be revealed as a girl next. l loved Equal rites, and this was kind of another take on the equality issue. Us girlies where denied so much for so long. Nowadays nobody would blink if a bunch of women joined the army, but alas this was not always so.

l loved this book, and finding out the ending made me laugh. l will read it again and again. A true classic. But, what would l know - l'm a girly myself!

Thank you Shadowgirl, and welcome to the very select club of people who really liked the book (by my last count, it's just you, me, and Ozzer). I wouldn't consider myself a girly girl, but I agree that there was a "girls rock" theme that required them all to be women in disguise. Perhaps we should feel sorry for the rest of these poor people who can't appreciate the humor that makes me smile every time I think about Polly and the gang.

I have to say that I didn't really care for MR myself. And regardless of the title, I think that somewhat mixed regiment would have worked better. If SGM Jackrum were male, yet figured that the others were female it would have shown that not all males are either assholes or clueless.

I must admit that I actually DID like the book... the fact that they were ALL girls was not totally obvious to me, more a possibility that was toyed with all through the book, but then, us girls ain't so bright as you guys, so maybe that's why so far, it's mostly girls defending it in this thread. [size=7:5b0cf5ae5b](or maybe smart guys just don't like dumb girls getting the big part, eh fellas ? :lol: ) [/size] Well hey, maybe it's just a book that girls appreciate, which means our Pterry can actually communicate with women...

You know, on the past subject of who suffers more in a war, I would like to quote a source that shall go unnamed for now. "You know the sleeping feel no more pain, but living are scarred" Brownie points to whoever can tell me where it's from! That of course does not mean women and children suffer more, but really it depends on the war. For 'death beofre dishonor' types it is worse for the women and children, because they don't get the title 'died in service of their country'.

Other times, like as in the genocide/civil war of Rwanda it matters not the age, gender, or strength or the person you're fighting, and the women suffer just as much as the men who suffer just as much as the children who suffer just as much as the women. Who suffer more than the animals.

And you can add another person to the "people who like MR" list, Sunshine. I thought it was a great book, if in a different style and less finely woven than some of his others.

I also found the hints of relationship between two members of the Regement cute. And not glaringly obvious, so homophobes could easily say it doesn't exist. :roll:

Maladict needed to be female to make a point and complete the joke, I know. But she still seemed a very male charactor to me. I would think that if it hd to be revealed it should have been done in a way that mattered, not in a way that you go :blink: oh, look at that... Or maybe I am a hopeless dramatic. Whos favorite charactor is Maladict.

It seems to me Mal needed a better excuse to go to war. Though I guess 'I was bored and had to wear underwire' is reason enough... bordom seems to be the driving force for many vampires.

I also liked this book, but I have to agree that Terry over-exercised his theme. It seemed to me that Jackrum's female identity was telegraphed way early in the story, and seemed to be such a sure thing by the end. During the first reading, I found myself hoping that Jackrum would turn out to be male, just as a twist of expectations. "He" could have been used to working with female troopers and keeping everybody's (including the generals') secrets.

I have to wonder if some of Terry's earlier works, such as Fifth Elephant, had produced a lot of ideas that needed a place to go. Racisim, sexism, and all of the other little "isms" seem to intrigue him, and his novels give him a forum, even if the story plots come first. (Thank goodness for that!)

I'm interested in the problems his women characters run into when they break into a traditionally male environment. Besides MR, take a look at Angua as she fits herself into the watch. Not to mention her armor!

Thank you Shadowgirl, and welcome to the very select club of people who really liked the book (by my last count, it's just you, me, and Ozzer). I wouldn't consider myself a girly girl, but I agree that there was a "girls rock" theme that required them all to be women in disguise. Perhaps we should feel sorry for the rest of these poor people who can't appreciate the humor that makes me smile every time I think about Polly and the gang.

I too loved it! But I love all of Terry's stuff so. . . . But I want to join the club! I can never predict anything (or very rarely )

The plot in MR is next to non-existant. But except for Night Watch and Going Postal, it is TP's best written book. It is extremely inventive, and Polly is one of his great characters. Pratchett follows the rules for genre fiction pretty closely, which is to say, in every detective novel ever written, the murderer MUST make an appearance before page 30 or so. If you don't believe me, check out Feet of Clay or Guards Guards and see when the bad guy/gal first turns up.... but MR is not a detective but rather a quest or adventure novel. The interesting aspect of the novel is not whether the Reader knows all the soldiers are women, but whether the Characters know it. The convention is disguised sexual identity, straight from Shakespeare, and maybe 10,000 other stage plays! Pratchett is an excellent writer, and he WANTED you to know everyone was a gurl. If he didn't, he wouldn't have made it so obvious.

Besides, nobody in MR is as messed up as the Dwarfs in regard to sexual identity, are they?

I agree that it 'was a joke taken too far'. Also Terry can't seem to write a weak or ridiculous female character, he seems to hold women in some kind of awe and cannot poke fun at them in the same way as men. I find this reverential, almost sycophantic attitude quite annoying.

I remember hearing an interview with Terry on Radio 4 about MR in which he said something like 'I find it difficult to write a weak female character' asked why he jokingly responded, 'I don't know, perhaps I was bullied by the older girls at school' or something similar.